Digital skills and academic performance in students of the Unified General Baccalaureate: evidence from the Nazaret Private Educational Unit of the Santo Domingo canton
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51247/pdlc.v7iEspecial1.790Keywords:
digital skills; academic performance; Unified General Baccalaureate; DigComp 2.2; study habits; self-efficacyAbstract
This study analyzes the relationship between digital skills and academic performance in students of the Unified General Baccalaureate at the Nazaret Private Educational Unit. The study involved a census of 72 students and employed a quantitative, non-experimental, cross-sectional, and correlational-explanatory design. The instrument was organized around five dimensions of the DigComp 2.2 framework: information literacy, communication and collaboration, content creation, digital security, and problem-solving. The analysis incorporated descriptive statistics, internal reliability, KMO and Bartlett's tests, Pearson and Spearman correlations, group comparisons, linear regression with robust errors (HC3), Huber robust regression, bootstrap intervals, and a complementary logistic regression model for passing all subjects. The results show a high overall digital competence (M = 3.65; SD = 0.54; α = 0.776), with higher scores in digital security and problem-solving. Overall digital competence was positively associated with the mean in Pearson's correlation coefficient (r = 0.281; p = 0.018), but the relationship lost robustness with Spearman's correlation coefficient and when the influential factor was removed. The most consistent predictor of performance was the study habits and self-efficacy index (r = 0.427; p < 0.001; β = 0.588; p = 0.002 in the parsimonious model). It is concluded that digital competence is a relevant condition for learning, but in this institution, academic performance appears to depend more on the quality of educational use of ICT and study routines than on overall digital competence measured as an aggregate index
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